Vacancy title:
SENIOR TECHNICAL OFFICER, CHILD AND NEWBORN HEALTH - ID: ‘I3-IOOI7

Jobs at:
Management Sciences for Health (MSH)

Deadline of this Job:
May 18, 2018

Duty Station:
Kuresoi, Nakuru County, Kenya

JOB DETAILS:
Management Sciences for Health (MSH), a global health nonprofit organization, uses proven approaches developed over 40 years to help leaders, health managers, and communities in developing nations build stronger health systems for greater health impact. We work to save lives by closing the gap between knowledge and action in public health. For more information please visit our website www.msh.org

MSH seeks to recruit a highly-motivated and result-oriented Senior Technical Officer, Child and Newborn Health Senior Specialist for a five-year program (2016-2021), implemented in selected sub-counties in Baringo and Nakuru Counties. The purpose of the program is to enhance access to and utilization of quality family planning, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH) services in the target areas. The position will be based in Kuresoi, Nakuru County.

SENIOR TECHNICAL OFFICER, CHILD AND NEWBORN HEALTH - ID: ‘I3-IOOI7

The Senior Technical Officer will oversee the strengthening of provider skills in child and newborn healthcare services by scaling up high impact interventions and reinforcing widely accepted standard care practices. S/he will also be responsible for guiding the scale-up of the use of ORS/zinc in the management of diarrhea in public and private facilities as well as addressing inequities in immunization coverage through the Reaching Every Child (REC) approach. The officer will utilize the national Harmonized Competency Based Training Curriculum for Obstetrics and Neonatal Care to ensure appropriate care at various levels as well as a reinforced referral system through continuous trainings and training of trainers.

Under the guidance of the Senior Technical Advisor, the officer will undertake the following activities;

• Utilizing distance learning approaches, conduct trainings to review standard new-born care practices including essential newborn care, early breastfeeding initiation and lactation counseling.
  
• Introduce high-impact practices such as kangaroo mother care for preterm/low birth weight babies, chlorhexidine cord care, and neonatal resuscitation (Helping Babies Breathe). Additional topics will include compassionate and respectful counseling to care givers and their families.
  
• Train and mentor healthcare workers at high-volume health facilities in an exchange program to ensure providers have practical supervised experience in a setting with sufficient caseload to ensure diversity and depth of experience.
  
• Train health care workers from health facilities (GUK and private) to provide effective case management for childhood diarrhea by use of ORS/ZINC and therapeutic Vitamin A supplementation.
  
• Promote data review of the various mentoring and quality improvement approaches to ensure continuous provision and quality improvement.
  
• Using tailored plans and Community Champions, among other approaches, collaborate with county authorities to design and implement a quality assurance strategy and to implement the Reaching Every Community (REC) approach to address inequities in immunization coverage.

Qualifications and Experience

• The ideal candidate should have a minimum of Bachelor's degree in public health, nursing or other related field with at least 5 years demonstrated experience implementing child and newborn healthcare interventions.
  
• The candidate should have proven experience training healthcare workers in high volume settings.
  
• S/he should have strong written and oral presentation skills.
  
• In addition, s/he should have strong interpersonal, verbal and written communications, teamwork and partnering abilities. Willingness to relocate to Kuresoi and to travel within Kenya required.

Job application procedure
For further details and to apply for the position, please visit the employment opportunities section of our website at www.jobs-msh.icims.com  . Applications for this position should be submitted by May 18, 2018. If you cannot apply online, or have difficulty doing so, please email an explanation of your problem to iRecruiterproblem@msh.org  . Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.